


Remembering

by gatonip



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Gen, spoilers up to the beginning of ep 67, the Taako twins continue to rek me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 15:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11512605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatonip/pseuds/gatonip
Summary: A sister lost in time. A brother lost in misery.





	Remembering

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this just after the Lunar Interlude V ended, because I was just feeling So Much about these two. And now after the Stolen Century I'm destroyed and can only imagine how absolutely soul-shattering those minutes between Taako remembering Lup and Lup coming back must have been for him. These two will be the end of me.

“I’m so sorry, Taako, Barry. There was nothing I could do.”

The Director is apologizing to you, but for what, you’re having a difficult time understanding. You glance over at Barry who seems to have a better grasp at what she’s talking about, and from the look of pain on his face, you can tell it’s nothing good. It’s frustrating, this slow crawl towards recalling the memories stolen from you. Both of them anxiously warned you against trying to remember everything too quickly. But despite the danger, you just want everything to flood back at once. You’re comfortable acknowledging that you’ve never been the smartest person in the room, but this is one instance where you want everything to be clear to you.

Then suddenly, some of it does become clear.

As you learn the art of cooking from your aunt, as you stow away on caravan upon caravan, as you run away from trouble, your memories now supply an image reflected back at you, a copy learning and stowing away and running with you. No, it’s not a copy. An individual all their own, yet as your mind forms a map of their face it is eerily similar to what looks back at you in the mirror. The constellations of freckles. The shimmer of sage in her eyes. The scrunch of her nose when she smiles. They are uniquely hers. They are similarly yours. 

(It dawns on you that you wouldn’t look like complete carbon copies anymore. Add that to the list of reasons of why you suddenly find yourself crying.)

She has your sense of self-preservation, but with a double dose of courage and generous helping of a moral compass. She has a wittiness about her that you’ve yet to see someone completely keep up with. She masters evocation to levels this planar system has never seen; that none of the planar systems you’ve visited together had ever seen. She sings and fights and plans and cares.

No one ever calls you by your proper first name – Taakobell – except her when she wants to get under your skin, or when she needs you to know just how sincere she’s being. No one is ever as sincere with you as she is. No one has ever been able to quite understand you like she does, that sister of yours.

Your sister. Your _twin_ sister.

“Lup,” you choke out.

You didn’t realize you were going to speak that aloud, the syllables until now foreign to your mind, but long ago memorized on your tongue.

Lup, your twin, whom you would and have given your life for so many times over, who has risked her life and given it up for you in turn, whom you had forgotten.

You had forgotten your own sister.

You had forgotten Lup.

The Director – Lucretia, you remember, shy little Lucy – continues on with her explanation, but you can barely focus. You know what’s coming back is far from everything you’ve forgotten, but the sudden remembrance of Lup – Lup, your sister Lup, you couldn’t remember her, you couldn’t remember _her name_ – has you reeling with information. An early childhood of mischief and love. Then suddenly, orphans with nothing to their names but each other. Switching places to see who will notice, and learning both what makes you individuals and what will always bond you together. Egging and encouraging each other on all through the academy and coming out of it with some of the highest honors of your class. Long conversations in the dead of night while the others rest. Testing the waters of letting the others in, her love with Barry one of the strongest things you’ve ever seen, but always making each other your top priorities. You had each other’s backs when no one else did and an unquestionable level of trust that no one could come close to matching. The world comes to an end a hundred times over, and every time when you all somehow make it out of it, she’s still beside you.

Except now, as history repeats and the world begins to shatter anew, she’s not. You can remember her now – you _forgot her_ , you somehow forgot _Lup_ of all people, this fact continues to force acid into your throat – and yet she’s still just as missing from your life as she’s been the past decade; but more permanently, now.

Lup is gone. She is _gone_. You couldn’t remember losing her. You couldn’t say goodbye. 

And now you never can.

You’re shaking. You’re suffocating. Your sister, your twin, your confidant and closest friend and sanity whenever you thought you lacked any of the above. Unceremoniously ripped from you and returned, only to be taken away again. You learn that you could never claim to truly comprehended loneliness, but now that you know a life after her, you will. Because you have, quite frankly, nothing left to your name.

The trickle of memories pouring back in moves too slow for your liking. You want all of your memories back, every single one. You need them so you can memorize the lift of her voice, the sound of her laugh, the weight of her head on your shoulder, and all of the things that made her so much more than a carbon copy of yourself. She is – _was?_ – her own person, the best person you know, the person you strive to be. You cannot afford to forget again.

You cannot forget Lup.

**Author's Note:**

> Shhh it's okay she gets better


End file.
